RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 105, 28 January 1929, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Cosmos.)

“What is a passing remark?” asked a man who had been given a ride to Trentham by a motorist frieud on Saturday. “Just listen while I overtake that car in front,” was the reply.

The economist who recently declared that every family should have at least two motor-cars was probably having a joke at the expense of those responsible for planning ‘Wellington’s parking areas.

A plaintiff in a police case recently astonished the Court by ordering defendant’s counsel to sit down. No doubt the lawyer soon retaliated by making him sit up.

There is a bright future in store for the boy who when asked where the Magna Charta was signed, replied after a puzzled moment or two, “At tha bottom of the page.”

Mussolini’s bachelor tax has created so much interest in the newspapers of the world that few people realise that the Duce has only repeated an experiment centuries old. In faet, the pages of history provide an interrupted record of the bachelor running away from the tax-gatherer. In the ancient world there was little respect for the single man. Those Athenian husbands who were also law-makers appeared to taka a malicious delight in making the unattached young man pay well for their special privilege of freedom. Rome, in the days of Julius Caesar, had no great respect for the bachelor, and refused to let him share in the spoils of war. But it was Sparta that reduced the bachelor to his lowest estate. Ths Spartans were the conquerors of a people who outnumbered them, hence a high birth rate was necessary in the interests of the race.

Such a birth rate was the more desirable because of a way the Spartans had of weeding out the unfit. Babies of ten pounds or better at birth were passed by the censor. The others were deported to the woods and returned to the pagan gods. There was no market for “seconds.” It was therefore highly desirable that all the eligible young men should marry as early as possible. To encourage the idea of marriage—or, rather, to discourage the desire for single blessedness —it was the Spartan law that, once a year, those guilty of the crime of celibacy should be marched through the streets of the capital with not so much as a bath towel to screen them from the wind of winter and the scorn of the spectators. Even such harsh penalties failed to reform the bachelors, however, as all students of history will recall that Sparta died in spite of all its laws of self-preserva-tion.

Many of those motorists who had the unpleasant experience of being hemmed in by the miles-long line of cars returning from Trentham on Saturday afternoon are no doubt trying to probe the individual motorist’s inner consciousness. Moving away from the course in two streams of traffic, which later merged into one much longer one, r florists had need of all their ingenuity to avoid crashing into the car ahead, prevent interlopers from gaining an unfair advantage and at the same time warn the driver following of an abrupt halt. Many of the petty annoyances of the journey could be traced to the irresistible desire of some drivers to move out of the long line and cut in again after covering a few hundred yards in a venturesome spirit; they cause the average motorist as much inconvenience as the “snail-pace” variety. Those in the rear of the procession were, for some time, puzzled by the frequent stops in the long line of traffic, but it was later found that the “cut-in-and-outers” were again responsible.

While showing the long line of traffic what a brilliant performance in speed and flexibility he could present, the individual adventurer occasionally spied a traffic inspector quickly approaching. He then manoeuvred his car to the left and gradually found half an opening in the traffic line again. By threatening to damage the front fenders of a motorist milder than the average, the intrepid one quickly widened the opening to a full-sized opportunity, and thereby passed the inspector as one of the law-abiding many. Such performances invariably brought the cars further back to an abrupt stop for some seconds until the machines ahead had again assumed their normal distance from one another. Competition, it seems, is not confined to commerce and industry, but is just as’keen between the motorists themselves as it is with the men who make their cars. Many motorists are inclined to show the other fellow that he lacks the finer points of motoring, and that he is no judge of motor-cars. This spirit manifests itself in many forms, and in many of them its effrontery is amazing. * * •

This is particularly obvious in the case of many drivers of certain types of cars. Regardless of the speed, power and acceleration of their machines, no other ear is too speedy or powerful to be “taken on.” If the “taking on” is marked by ill-luck the first time, does it deter the unsuccessful driver? Not at all. A few mile.: further along he will encounter another car of the same make and again will attempt to show its operator what an error he made in not buying a really fast and powerful car. Psychologists ‘tell us that the individual motorist’s attitude on the highway is a reflection of his desire to defend a prejudice. He buys a certain make of motor-car and thereafter feels compelled to prove that his judgment was sound. Consciously or subconsciously, nearly every motorist appears to have this attitude, only some are worse than others. A sweeping glance at a stream of motor vehicles leads one to the belief that two classes of drivers have developed. One is, relatively speaking, the victim of a mania to show that he is right The other desires to prove, not so much that he is right, but that the other fellow is wrong.

What fish is the most dangerous to man? In view of the large number of bathing fatalities reported during the last few months, the average reader will undoubtedly reply thlt it is the shark. Such, however, is not the case. The barracuda, a large, savage, pike-like fish of the tropical seas, scientists declare, is the most dangerous to man of all the fish in the sea. The barracuda is more likely to attack a man than is the shark. This is due to the fact that its food-getting depends on what it sees more than on what it smells. It is attracted by any flashing object, and is likely to strike immediately. It has one point in its favour, however, in that it strikes at an object but once and then passes on io something else